Monday, November 23, 2009

Inductive Reasoning Fallacy

A holiday lesson on thinking, straight from my idol Nassim Taleb:

A turkey lives 1000 days. Every day for 999 days the turkey is fed and fattened, eating a little more everyday.

Let's say for the sake of this piece that this turkey is a fantasy free-range turkey, not the traditional mass-produced, death-farmed, slaughterhouse, pig-boned, steroid special you will be eating this Thursday.

So from this turkey's perspective he is happier and happier every day, thinking to himself, "Wow, what a great life I have. Every day just gets better and better and every day I just get bigger and bigger!"

Day 1000. Chop. Thwack. Slaughter. Gutted.

Today has everything to do with yesterday, until it violently does not. Past performance is not indicative of future results. In other words, yesterday has nothing to do with the here and now.

And for that we can all be grateful!

Happy Thanksgiving all. Please keep the slaughterhouse product consumption to a minimum this year.

And don't be a turkey.